2012 Mac mini review, tear down, and benchmarks.

Oct 24, 2012

Apple announced the 2012 Mac mini yesterday. The little powerhouse received a bump in processor speed, memory speed, memory size, and USB3 ports. Our signup form lists the new models and our memory upgrades are the new higher-speed RAM. We received our first batch in already and have had some fun with them. Out of the box the new 2012 Mac mini is loaded with OS X 10.8.1 (Build 12B2080) and scored 7433 on geekbench. A 2011 Mac mini updated to OS X 10.8.2 scored 6583. UPDATE: OS X 10.8.2 for the 2012 hardware has a build # of 12C2034.

The overall packaging size was unchanged, however marketing specs have been updated and the inside organization has been optimized.

Under the hood only minor differences are visible. Most notable are the fan design, Hitachi hard drive, and connections for the antennas. (2012 on left – 2011 on right)

We’ll begin testing our alternative OS options on the new hardware over the course of the next week. This includes Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012, CentOS 6, Debian 6, Ubuntu 12.04LTS, and we’ll also try to get OS X 10.6 running on them as we did with the 2011 Mac minis. Our VPN and WordPress scripts should also work and we’ll continue to develop exciting streamlined ways for people to use a Mac mini as a server. We offer a 6 month payment plan for those who want to get a mini online but reduce the initial up-front investment. Let us know if you have any questions about placing a Mac mini in a data center – it’s a great low-cost service that gives great performance for web, file, email, game, CMS/CRM, VoIP, xcode, filemaker, etc (the list is never ending) hosting.

We’ll take a deeper look into the Mac mini Server model as well in the next day…

hello guys and sorry for the lame question: I was an happy mac mini 2011 user, now I turned into the new mac mini late 2012 but it turned into hell.

first I wasn’t able to add a second drive (seems like apple doesn’t let you use the ifixit cable for the main drive and suddenly it worked only chaning the main sata cable: I used the apple one with my new samsung 830 ssd e the ifixit one with the original hard drive hitatchi 1tb.

now I’m going nuts with the os installation: I can’t install it.

i tried to download the os from apple store and it says: your computer is not compatibile.

i tried to load the os on an usb stick and if I try to boot from usb shows a circle with a slash and everything freezes.

now I tried the net installer: it downloaded the os for almost 3 hours and now, after the first reboot it says “i can’t install os mountain lion, please try again”.

what the &&@! is going on? there some kind of apple hardware protection over here?

hello guys, anyone of you tried to do a cleal installation of mountain lion 10.8.2 build 12c2034? I tried to install a different build but it didn’t work, now I’m looking for a way to download the correct build, since I bought a different one 2 months ago and now apple store doesn’t let me download it. so strange!

I’m thinking of ditching my slooow early 2008 iMac (24in 2.8ghz 6GBram GEforce 8800) for a 2012 i7 model with either fusion or standard hard drive, and 8GB ram. I mostly use for photo editing (photoshop CS4, likely CS6, Aperture 3.1.4, and lightroom). wondering if this would be siginificant upgrade in performance/speed, or if the intel 4000 video card on the mini makes a 2012 iMac a better option for this type of work?

I’m looking at a Mini for a home server. It will run Indigo for automation, feed Internet video to the TV and occasionally compress shows from Tivo for an iPad. I’m trying to decide what model. I want the fastest processor, but I’m unsure about the hard drive selections. The Server would have been my first choice, but the 5400 rpm drives are kind of a bummer. Curious about Fusion, but also leery.

Hi There, What are your thoughts of using the mac mini I7, 16gb ram for video editing with either imovie or fcpx. I have never used a mac and would be importing hd 1080i from my sony camcorder. I don’t mine waiting for exporting it is more about the experience within the programs. Such as importing, cliping and moving clips to different time lines.

It would take some customization, it might not be easy. For the most part since 10.8 is close to 10.7 most people we know would want to run 10.8. 10.7 was a large departure from 10.6 and some of our customers still need to run 10.6 which is why we have made that work on the 2011 machines.

This is a very low up front commitment cost to have leading edge IT capacity. It probably helps to know what you are doing and these folks should prepackage the top 20 applications for less experienced end users.

For customers that need a little extra help we go above and beyond to help them reach their goals. It’s somewhat common for new customers to go through a few one on one screen sharing sessions where we show them the ropes and point out key settings and features that fit their intended use.

I just have one question: I sold my 2011 mac mini and I bought the new mac mini 2012. Can I swap the 1 tb drive with my ssd samsung 830 (and even a second drive with the ifixit cable) or there would be any “logical” or “hardware” block? thank you

The OS build is different. If you took the 2011 HD and placed it in the 2012 it wouldn’t boot. Most likely with OS X 10.8.3 you’d be able to do it. Unfortunately, if you’ve sold the 2011 already then waiting for an update is not ideal.

ok i did a clone image of my 1tb original disk and i copied it to my ssd. now, i tried to download the .dmg file from apple store for a clean install but it keep saying that “your computer is not compatible with mountain lion” – and obviously isn’t true 🙂 there is a trick to download a new copy (or even to buy) of mountain lion build 12c2034 to keep it on my hdisk as backup?

if you got the answer to your question could you please let me know? i have the same problem 🙂 one ssd and 1 tb disk and the ifixit dual drive kit and i dont know if i can use them together on the mac mici 2012 i just bought.
thank u

Have you seen anything that would lead you to believe the Mac Mini with a “Fusion Drive” is anything other than a Mac Mini with a normal 128GB SSD + 1TB HD? Those of us using Data Doublers want to know!